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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



).ST OFKICKS -CHAMI'AKIN AND t'KHANA. 



AN ADDRESS 



Forefathers' Convocation, 



SUNDAY, DECEMBHR 13, 1896. 



The Pilgrim and His Share in American Life, 



PRESIDENT DRAPER. 



(lAZICTTE PKINT. CIIAMPAKiN. ILL 






/'V20f 



The Pilgrim and His Share in American Life. 



"Yea, when the frownhig- bulwarks 

That g-uard this holy strand 
Have sunk beneath the trampling- surgre 

In beds of sparkling- sand. 
While in the waste of Ocean 

One hoar3- rock shall stand. 
Be this its latest leg-end: — 

HERE, WAS THE PILGRIM'S LAND."' 

The Pilgrim literature of recent years lias been 
marked by a discussion of the question whether Eng- 
land or Holland contributed most to the formation of 
Pilgrim character, and through that character to the 
institutional life of the New World. That discussion is 
a fascinating and not a fruitless one. The average 
citizen finds interest in it though he still refuses to 
grant that there is much question about it. The his- 
torical student enters into it with enthusiasm and sees 
some new light. It seems strange, indeed, that that 
discussion has been so long delayed. The delay indi- 
cates how long it takes for a people to put away its 
desires and its prejudices and study history with an 
unbiased disposition to elucidate the truth. 

It is not too much to say ihat out of this discussion 
it is gradually becoming apparent that English thought 
has done but scant justice to the decided impulses 
which the heroism and the progress of the people of 
the "Low Countries" contributed at the very beginning 
to the trend and tone of organized society in America, 
and that some part of this contribution came by the 
way of Cape Cod, even if the greater part did enter by 
the way of Sandy Hook. 

We will, however, avoid being drawn into that dis- 
cussion today. We will go back to "1620," that talis- 
manic date in the life of the Old World as well as of the 
New, and recount the simple and pathetic story which 
it brings up to us. The facts which are neither con- 
troverted nor involved are all-sufficient for us, and the 
honor which their repetition pays to the plain men and 
women who made that date great in human history is 



but a slight indication of the feelings which come to 
all true Americans at the annual recurrence of Fore- 
fathers' Day. 

The greater part of the eastern Massachusetts coast 
is shaped not unlike the outer rim of the external 
human ear. From Cape Ann at the north and front of 
this rim to Cape Cod at the south, it is an air-line dis- 
tance of forty-five miles. Many capacious and mag- 
nificent harbors lie within these capes. Boston ex- 
tends her great, strong arms nearly around Massachu- 
setts Bay, well up at the northern part of the large 
enclosure of the ocean. Plymouth, the oldest of New 
England towns, with a thrifty and cultured population 
of nine thousand people, looks out to the eastward upon 
Plymouth Harbor which is well down to the southwest- 
ern part of the enclosure. From Boston to Plymouth it 
is an air-line distance of thirty-seven miles. The shore 
is traversed by both steam and electric roads. From 
Cape Cod to Plymouth, across the water, it is 
twenty-five miles. One is better prepared to enter into 
the spirit of things at the old town if he goes down 
from Boston by steamer, or enters from the open ocean, 
notes the contour of the coast, studies the settlements 
and objects upon the shore, floats over the wide ex- 
panse of water and follows the path which the May- 
flower took into the harbor of Plymouth. It will 
require more hours to do this, but one will not see the 
•'blue hills of Milton," get the bracing sea air. pass the 
Gurnet twin lights, look upon the Plymouth and Stand- 
ish monuments, and contemplate the great occurrences 
which that shore has witnessed, without being thank- 
ful that he took the time to enter the harbor through 
the narrow winding channel, much in the form of the 
letter "S," from the same direction and in about the 
same way that the Forefathers did. 

Let us try to go back to their time and look at these 
people in their far-away homes, — so much farther 
then than now, and follow them in their courageous 
journey, so full of sorrow yet so full of enduring tri- 
-umph, over the sea. 



History first finds them, but not until more than two 
hundred years after the fact, in the northern part of Not- 
tinghamshire, about forty miles from the eastern coast 
of Old England. Here they, and a few like them, had 
separated from the rest of the world upon religious 
matters and, gathering together a few kindred spirits 
from several neighboring villages, had, at Scrooby, 
organized a small congregation of Christians called 
Separatists, or Brownists, and known later as Inde- 
pendents in England and as Congregationalists in 
America. 

They were the small third party of English Protest- 
antism and of the English politics of that day. Prot- 
estantism had very naturally and appropriately taken 
its name from the protests of its people against the 
authority as well as against many of the doctrines and 
much of the practice of the Old Mother Church of 
Rome. English Protestants had become divided into 
three classes. We must distinguish between them if 
we would gain any understanding of the conditions 
which induced, and the motives which actuated the 
migration, first to Holland and then to America: or, 
indeed, if we would comprehend the early religious 
and political history of our own land. The first class 
were Conformists; that is, rigid and cheerful adherents 
of the ritual, and forms and ceremonies of the Gov- 
ernmental Church of England. Indeed, they were going 
farther than following the ritual and observing the 
ceremonies of the Established Church: they were com- 
ing to look upon the King as not only the earthly head 
of the State Church, but as the infallible representa- 
tive of the Living God, with divine authority over all 
temporal and political matters, which it would be high 
treason to call in question. The second class were 
Non-Conformists, Purists or Puritans. They were 
"reformers"' within the English Church. They were 
opposed to the showy vestments which were worn, and 
to many of the practices and ceremonies which were 
observed in the services of the Church. They denied 
and repudiated the divine authority of the King. But 



while they were for purifying they had no thought of 
leaving the Church. The Puritans were wrestling 
with the Ritualists or Conformists for the control of 
the English Protestant Church, and there is no great 
dearth of reason for believing that ambition was as 
potent as principle in determining their course. It 
surely is not too much to say that when they gained 
the power to control they commonly fell into the same 
ways of which tiiey complained so bitterly when they 
were in the minority. The Separatists were so called 
because they i<eparated themselves from the State 
Church. They were Puritans, but they were so much 
more that the Puritans in England and afterwards in 
America disavowed and opposed them. They were 
P/'ote8tants of the Protestants. They were so ultra 
that they would leave the great, powerful Church, 
which the English State ordained and supported by 
political and civil authority, and go their own way. 

It ought not to be difficult for us to see how much 
they surrendered, nor how much obloquy and danger 
they incurred, in separating from the Church and 
going their own way. When there was little religious 
toleration in the world, and none in England, when 
religious enthusiasm was little short of frenzy, when 
the State and the Church were one and the Church 
could employ the powers of the State to enforce her 
fanatical requirements, when to leave the Church 
meant to defy the King and all his minions, it was a 
supreme religious and political step to leave the Estab- 
lished Church. 

The differences which grew up in the English Church 
were not upon doctrines, but upon matters of govern- 
ment, policy, practice and form. In a later age they 
would doubtless have been adjusted by concession and 
agreement, but the times were severe and force was the 
controling power in the world. The keen-witted and 
unscrupulous Elizabeth had managed to avoid the 
issue. Diplomacy had served her purpose to the end 
of her reign. But James was without her resources 
and the differences in the Church immediately became 



acute under his reign. The Puritan minority had no 
rights which the monarch recognized or the majority- 
respected. They were subjected to fines and exactions, 
to subtle annoyances and open persecutions until, of 
necessity, their religious movement became a political 
movement. In time they grew to be the majority in 
numbers. It was then that their religious fortitude 
nerved the arm that struck off Charles' head. If the 
Puritans who adhered to the Church were harrassed, 
the Separatists who left the Church were hunted, im- 
prisoned, burned and hanged, until all must flee the 
country if they would keep their lives and worship 
God in their own independent way. In large numbers 
they went to Holland, where the good cause of relig- 
ious freedom and toleration was fighting its first and 
bloodiest battle and winning its most signal triumph 
in the history of the world. 

The little congregation of Separatists at Scrooby is 
of great interest to us, for out of its numbers came the 
leading Pilgrims at Plymouth in New England. The 
patriot and the student will study every particle of 
original material bearing upon the careers of the mem- 
bers of this congregation, as well as upon the acts of 
the collective body. But we must, unfortunately, be 
content today with the merest glance at the most sig- 
nificant steps in its progress from obscurity to the 
highest pinacle of world-fame and a most consequential 
factor in the development of nations. 

In 1(307 persecution had become so dreadful that it 
was determined to seek refuge in the Netherlands. 
Elizabeth had consented to these migrations during her 
reign, but James was intent upon preventing and pun- 
ishing them. As Bradford says: "Though they could 
not stay yet were they not suffered to go." In their 
efforts to get out of England and reach a land where 
thought could be free and worship untrarameled, their 
members were robbed of their money, despoiled of 
their goods, thrown into prison in the name of English 
justice, and scattered in all directions by ecclesiastical 
hate assuming to act in the name of the Living God. 



It was almost a year before neighbors and friends. 
Imsbands and wives, parents and children were re- 
united on the banks of the Zuyder Zee, bound together 
more closely than ever by the common perils they had 
suffered, the common separation from old homes and 
all the associations of their lives, and the common 
loneliness in a country where the land, the houses, the 
people and the language were all new and strange to 
them. 

Here for twelve years they received welcome and 
protection by a people who had just laid down a 
hundred thousand lives to establish intellectual and 
spiritual freedom as the sure basis of political liberty, 
and who had celebrated the triumphs of their arms by 
setting up free schools and academies, as well as five 
national universities. 

When they made applications to the Burgomasters 
and Court of Leyden for leave to take up their resi- 
denc(> in that city, it was granted with the following 
endoisement upon the petition, viz: "The Court in 
making a disposition of this present memorial, declare 
that ihey refuse no honest persons free ingress to come 
and have residence in this city, provided that 
such persons behave themselves, and submit to the laws 
and ordinances: and therefore the coming of the Me- 
morialists ivill he aijreeable and welcome. This is done 
in their Council House, 12th February 1699." Surely 
this action tells a very large story. 

It is a little significant, but not strange, that the time 
of their sojourn in Holland is almost identical with the 
twelve years' truce agreed upon with Philip which fol- 
lowed the first Spanish recognition of the Netherland 
Republic. With the prospect of renewed hostilities 
they were forced to elect whether they would engage 
in the common defense, with the practical certainty of 
being absorbed into the Dutch life, and of losing their 
identity as an English society, or would migrate to a 
far-away land where they could retain the language, 
the customs and the common law, and fly the flag of old 
England, and yet secure the freedom of thought and 



manner of worship which religious and political 
frenzy denied them in the Mother-land. They had 
lived peaceably with the Dutch, and their new home 
had given them better advantages, aside from religious 
freedom, than they had previously enjoyed. They 
were hard-by the first commercial city of the world. 
They had lived under the shadow of a national univer- 
sity. They were among a people more largely engaged 
in maritime pursuits and enterprises, and in manufac- 
tures involving skilled labor, than any other people up- 
on the globe The war had sharpened intelligence, 
leveled classes, and worked a marvelous material de- 
velopment. Education had flourished and the masses 
were beginning to get a good foot-hold in aflPairs. The 
Pilgrims were profited by these things, and they en- 
gaged in the vocations of the people, rendered honora- 
ble service, paid their debts, and avoided controversy. 
They were self-respecting, and public officials have left 
records which show that they were much respected. 
They welcomed to their circle strangers of any shade 
of religious faith who could fall in with their manner 
of worship. For reasons which were obvious, they 
were exclusive in their social and religious life But 
children were growing up, and growing up with feel- 
ings not altogether akin to those which had come with 
their fathers from their old homes, and, what seemed 
worse to them, they persisted in falling in love with the 
children of the Dutch. Their business relations with 
the people all around them necessarily became more 
and more intimate. The renewal of the war would call 
every man into the service. If the war should go 
against them Holland would become a Spanish prov- 
ince, and they dreaded Spain even more than England- 
Their exclusiveness and their identity as an English 
society were in danger. They must soon become a part 
of the Dutch people or they must move to a more 
isolated home. They discussed long and earnestly; 
they could not agree: they separated into two very 
nearly equal parts; but they disagreed in love. The 
natural affection for their native land, their mother- 



10 

tongue, and for the traditions and aspirations of the 
English nation, led one party to decide that they must 
go. But others, even including John Robinson, their 
great pastor, would stay behind: perhaps, if all went 
well, they would follow in later time. 

That party which would go bargained with a com- 
pany of English adventurers to transport them to 
America, ihe new, the unknown world. This company 
was to procure them chartered rights in lands that 
were without market value and hardly worth the ask- 
ing. For this they agreed to give the company half of 
all the profits in traffic, fishing, tilling the ground, and 
other labor of all kinds, in their new home, for the 
period of seven years. They were to have goods in 
common; four days in the week they were to labor for 
the joint account, and two for themselves. At the end 
of seven years each planter was to have the house he 
had built and the garden he had tilled. They were to 
sail from the nearest port, Delft Haven, in the "Speed- 
well" for Southampton, and there gather up a few 
English friends, and then in the "SpeedwelT" and the 
"^Mayflower"* start on their long journey. 

Things being ready a day of fasting was observed 
and then, in the evening, both sections of the congre- 
gation set out for Delft Haven, fourteen miles distant, 
spending the whole night together in song and prayer, 
with '• friendly entertainment and Christian discourse." 
The time for parting came in the morning. That part- 
ing must separate friends and neighbors who were to 
each other more than friends and neighbors, and in 
many cases it must break families for life. They 
realized it and " for the abundance of sorrow they 
could not speak." Falling upon their knees, Robinson 
entreated God's protection, they silently embraced each 
other, then one part turned back to lose its identity in 
twenty-five years among the Dutch, and the other part 
passed over the gang-plank and under the English flag, 
to gain unparalleled fame as the fathers and mothers 
of a great new State of worldwide significance, and to 



n 

give inspiration to the brightest and broadest and most 
beneficent new civilization in world history. 

Bradford says: "So they left that goodly and pleas- 
ant city which had been their resting plac(^ near twelve 
years: but they knew tliat they were Pihirims." 

They were hardly on their way before they began to 
be subjected to a system of robbery and treachery 
which was to continue through many years and to 
which they were to submit in patience until they had 
many times paid the pound of flesh nominated in the 
bond, and until they were strong enough to put an end 
to the disreputable cupidity of their task masters. It 
was more than twenty-five years before the little Pil- 
grim Republic could say it owed no man anything. 
First they were forced to sell provisions to raise £60 to 
pay certain port charges before they could sail, and 
which did not properly devolve upon them. Setting 
sail, they were out four days when the " Speedwell " 
was reported to be leaking dangerously All bore up 
for Dartmouth and ten days were spent in unloading 
and repairing her from stem to stern, when she was 
pronounced entirely sea-worthy. Starting again, they 
were three hundred miles upon their journey when the 
captain of the "Speedwell"' again reported her leaking 
and insisted upon putting back to the English Ply- 
mouth, and then, although no leak was found, refused 
to again undertake the journey. He was resorting to 
treachery to avoid his agreement to carry them to 
America and remain with them a year. Time was 
vital, however, and so it was arranged that the "Speed- 
well" should be abandoned and return to London. 
Eighteen of her passengers returned with her, the re- 
mainder crowding into the "Mayflower." Fully six 
weeks after the departure from Leyden the " May- 
flower," with her precious freight, made her third and 
final start, and it was to be more than two, long, bitter 
months before she was to sight the shores of the New 
World. 

While she is slowly making her way amid sunshine 
and storm over the great deep, let us study her pas- 



13 

sengers a little more closely. How they had been win- 
nowed by repeated separations from the common herd ! 
At old Scrooby they had separated from all the world 
around them; going from there, the less daring stayed 
behind; they had left fnlly half their number, and 
surely not the most courageous half, at Leyden; those 
who started and became discouraged had returned at 
the last moment with the captain of the " Speedwell;" 
the remaining ones were surely cast in an heroic mould, 
and the blood of an hundred kings was not more royal 
than was theirs. 

There were ooe hundred and two passengers upon 
the vessel, seventy-three males and twenty-nine 
females. There were fifty-nine adults, eleven hired 
employes or apprentices, and thirty -two children. 
Nearly all were blessed with plain, old-fashioned 
English names. One-tifth of the males bore the simple 
name of John, and almost as many more had that of 
William or Edward. Catherine, Elizabeth, Dorothy, 
Mary, and Ann predominated among the other sex. 
There were no Lizzies or Bessies or Mollies among 
them. They were very commonly below middle life, 
and but one couple, so far as is known, was above fifty 
years of age. 

Concerning the individuals, the chief interest centers 
in the names of Carver, Brewster, Bradford, Standish, 
Fuller, Howland, Hopkins and Alden. Would that we 
could stop to speak a word of each one of them! They 
do not need it, for history and literature will keep them 
green in the grateful memory of a mighty nation 
and of the world through all generations, but perhaps 
we might be profited thereby. 

On Saturday, November 20, 1620, the Indians on the 
outer shore of Cape Cod were able to discern a sail 
piercing the rim of the eastern horizon, for that morn- 
ing the long-deferred, magnetic cry of "Land, hoi" 
rang out from the masthead of the "Mayflower." The 
English company had secured certain land rights for 
them from the Virginia Company, whose territory was 
to the south, but of very uncertain limitations. The 



13 

vessel was at once put S. S. E., for it was the purpose 
to go to the mouth of the Hudson, or below. Encoun- 
tering shoals at evening, the vessel put back for clear 
water, and passed the night. It was represented now 
that it was dangerous to attempt the southern passage. 
The coast was well known to mariners however, and 
the captain was a veteran. In any event, it was deter- 
mined to put into Cape Cod Harbor and continue in the 
ship until they could construct habitations upon the 
shore. A month was now passed in exploring the 
shores and journeying upon the land in quest of a safe 
harbor and a suitable situation for a town. They 
coasted in the shallop of the ship over the waters and 
journeyed upon the land for days together, seeking the 
best location for their future home. The safe harbor, 
the eastern outlook from a sloping back-ground, the 
natural advantages for defense, the quality of the soil 
and the "very sweet brook" and the "many delicate 
springs'" as Bradford called them, decided the matter, 
and they brought the Mayflower upon the last twenty- 
five miles of her great voyage, past the point where the 
twin Gurnet lights now stand, and where it is said that 
Thorwald the old Norse chieftain found his grave, with 
a Christian cross at the head and foot, six hundred 
years before, past Saquish Point and in full view of 
Captain's Hill, around the most wonderful natural 
breakwater on the Atlantic coast, and made her fast in 
tne harbor of Plymouth. 

It was Thursday, December 31, the shortest day in 
the year. It had been five long months since the start 
at Leyden. They had been transplanted from bright 
Slimmer in the Old World to stern winter in the New. 
Too well they knew that. 

"The breaking- waves dashed hig-h 
On a stern and rock-bound coast.*" 

Undaunted, they marked out "The Street" just north 
of the brook and running from the shore back to the 
abrupt hill. They decided assignments of land by lot. 
They waited for the Sabbath to pass, and on the fol- 
lowing Monday morning began the building of the rude 



14 

cabins which marked the first town of Plymouth. What 
wonder that that street is "Leyden Street." Nearest 
the shore and on the left was the "Common House," 
and then beyond, on the same side, were six humble 
n^sidences. Across the street were five more, includ- 
ing the governor's more roomy if not more stately 
home. At the end of the street, on the hill, stood the 
structure which served for fort and church together, 
and nearest it, for obvious reasons, was the abode of 
Standish. 

The accommodations seemed meager indeed and close 
planning was necessary. The company was separated 
into households so that all were measurably provided 
for. But, in a way they knew not, there would soon be 
more room. Four had died upon the vessel after she 
reached the harbor. The fair young wife of Bradford, 
only twenty-one, had been drowned while lie was away 
searching the site of their new home. Before the warm 
days of another summer nine husbands and wives had 
found burial together. Five husbands had been left 
widowers and one wife a widow. But three couples 
I'emained unbroken, and but two were not called upon 
to mourn some member of their families gone. Five 
children lost both parents, three others were fatherless 
and three more were motherless. The first year fifty-one 
persons, exactly half their number, went to final rest 
and were laid together on Cole's Hill close by their 
homes, and their graves were obliterated lest the 
Indians should learn how weak the colony was and 
should fall upon and utterly destroy it. Yet, when the 
Mayflower returned to Old England in the w^armer 
April days, while they doubtless went to the hill tops 
and with breaking hearts and tearful eyes, as Bough- 
ton's famous picture portrays to us, watched her white 
sails sink below the eastern horizon, not one of them 
returned in her. Feebly, but heroically and surely, the 
spirit of American institutions had gained foothold in 
the New World, and the march of empire was not to be 
backward and over the sea, but to the westward. 

When this little company came sailing into the har- 



15 

bur of Plymouth, they had a new nation with them. 
They had established it in the cabin of the Mayflower. 
Disappointed in not reaching the Hudson or the Dela- 
ware, wliere they assumed their patent from the Vir- 
ginia Company would confer landed rights and impose 
English law. some of them reasoned that there would 
be no authority and no rights upon the soil of New 
England, and that they must at once establish a gov- 
ernment for themselves. Therefore they called all of 
the adult males to the cabin and adopted and sub- 
scribed to a compact to "solemnly and mutually, in the 
presence of God and one of another, covenant and com- 
bine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our 
best ordering and preservation and the furtherance of 
the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, con- 
stitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, 
acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as 
shall be thought most meet and convenient for the gen- 
eral good of the colony, unto which we promise all due 
submission and obedience." Then they made John 
Carver governor for a determinate time, to end with 
their calendar year. 

Here was a pure democracy with a written constitu- 
tion, upon the basis of manhood suffrage. It was the 
first known instance of the kind in human history. 
Bancroft says it was the birth of popular constitution 
al liberty. 

The limitations of the hour forbid that we shall fol- 
low the narrative longer, and perhaps reveal the fact 
that I have already yielded too much to my own inter- 
est in the details of the fascinating story. But there 
are some suggestions of a general character which seem 
pertinent to the occasion, for which I must ask your 
kindly patience. 

In the first ten years the colony had, speaking rough- 
ly, increased to five hundred souls, and in the following 
ten years as many more had been added. But in the 
last ten years a settlement of the highest importance 
had been llioroughly established on Massachusetts 
Bay, forty miles to the north of it. In that time 



1(5 

more than twenty thousand English people had made 
new homes in Boston. They came in the eleven years 
when Charles governed England without a parliament, 
only to make the tyranny of the king sharpen religious 
hate, stir the mind and nerve the arm of the commons, 
and clear the road to his prison and his doom. They 
ceased coming when the long parliament had gathered, 
taken up gov8rnment in the name of the people, de- 
veloped Cromwell and the Ironsides, and brought cabi- 
net minister and bishop, and finally the king himself, 
to the bar, and then sent them to the block. These 
new neighbors were old acquaintances in a way, for 
they were Puritans, representatives of one of the two 
leading parties in English Protestantism and English 
politics. 

No word of ours can, even by implication, be made to 
do otherwise than yield honor to the spirit of English 
Pui'itanism. No greater or more heroic spirit ever 
breathed among men. Without intending it, and al- 
most in spite of itself, it has been the most potent fac- 
tor in the growth of individuality, in the upbuilding of 
character, and in the evolution of popular liberty. Its 
coldly logical creed sharpened the faith of men and 
made of the faithful the best fightei's the world has 
ever seen. For the cause they espoused they could 
cheerfully die, but never yield. Sincere, undoubting, 
dreadfully in earnest, singing and praying and preach- 
ing and fighting together, they made the fields of 
Naseby and Dunbar and Marston Moor grounds which 
inspire the progress of the human race, for upon them 
they taught the Stuart kings and all the world together 
the grim lesson that if there are divine rights among 
men they are inherent in the people and not in the 
kings 

And so the Puritan stock was a good one to enter 
into the composition of a new nation, but the Puritan 
spirit must be chastened and moderated before it could 
give the artist touch to the spirit of liberty across the 
sea. It was to be a softened Puritan character, as 
exemplified in the Pilgrim at Plymouth, rather than 



the austere typ(% unchanged and unadapted, as seen in 
the Ironsides at the Bay, which was to breathe not 
only the spirit of Christianity as they interpreted it, 
but also of independence, of equality, of liberty, and of 
nationality into American life, and by these great 
marks to distinguish it to all the people of the world. 

The Puritan was in a very large sense a Dependent. 
He was a devout adherent of the English State Church. 
Independence from it was sacrilege to him. Its doc- 
trine was his law and gospel. He diflfered with some 
of its practices, but when he could control its action he 
was content. And, truth to tell, when he was in the 
majority his way was not so very different from the 
way of the Conformists when they were in the ma- 
jority. No other man was ever so fond of having his 
own way as this Puritan father of ours, and when he 
could be in charge of the procession he was not much 
discomfited by vestments and ceremonies. He was 
an unquestioning supporter of the English State as 
well as of the English Church. His opposition to the 
House of Stuart was religious, but it was political as 
well as religious. But his opposition to the king never 
led him into opposition to the State. It was in his 
mind to control and not separate from the State. He 
was an excellent leader, but not so good a follower. 
He liked to lead and he expected to control the people 
about him. He never thought of seceding until after 
he had taken his next degree. It never occurred to 
him to permit his opposition to bishop or king to lead 
him beyond the advantages the state or the church could 
bestow, and frequently he had ideas of getting to be 
bishop or king himself. 

The Pilgrim was an Independent. He had long 
before gone out of the English Church. He loved the 
language and the common law, and of course he loved 
the hills and the valleys, the high-ways and the struc- 
tures of Old England. But he was not allowed to look 
upon the hills and follow the highways without sur- 
rendering his freedom, and that he would not do. 
Long ago he had left the English Church and State 



18 

behind. Of late he had crossed the wide sea to keep 
the language and retain the law of the Mother-land, 
while he organized a Church without asking leave of 
any one, and set up an English State all by himself. 
In thought and act the Pilgrim was thoroughly an 
Independent himself, and the rightful founder of an 
Independent State. 

The Puritan had no understanding and no conception 
of equality of all men before the law. He had been 
familiar with class distinctions and he did not dislike 
them. Indeed, he had never known any other way. 
There were many men and women at the Bay 
who belonged to the gentry. They brought with them 
to the New World the English passion for landed pos- 
sessions. Each man of them wanted a domain for 
himself and his descendants. I am not saying that he 
was the worse for this, but only that he was not crying 
for the corner-stone principle of <^ur American national 
life. The first school the Puritan State in Massachu- 
setts set up was a college after tlie English plan, to 
train the sons of the higher classes for the offices of the 
Church and State. There was little thought of educa- 
tion for the childfen of the poor. It was naturally so, 
but it ii'as so. Governor Winthrop frequently talked 
of the "common people." As good an authority as 
Charles Francis Adams says: "The common people 
were whipped and set in the stocks when they misbe- 
haved themselves. The gentry were fined and admon- 
ished." One of their criminal statutes reads: "No 
man shall be beaten with above forty stripes, nor shall 
any true gcntleynnn, nor any man aiual to a gentleman, 
be punished with whipping, unless his crime be very 
shameful and his course of life vicious and profligate." 
The suffrage was limited to the people of his liking. It 
is not strange that it was so, but it remains that it 
was so. 

The Pilgrim, on the other hand, loved the common 
brotherhood and put all upon an equal footing. He had 
seen more of the world and it had widened his outlook 
and changed his feeling. From the beginning he put 



19 

the suffrage upon the basis of manhood. He had seen 
what his Puritan brother had never seen, the equal 
division of estates among all the children. He put 
faith in the mass and, after untrammeled discussion, he 
steered his course by the will of the greater number. 
He was the best early representative 6f that American 
spirit which puts all native-born or adopted children of 
the Republic upon a common plane and bestows the 
highest rewards upon the most assiduous and the most 
deserving. 

The Puritan was a bigot. He was an exceedingly 
interesting bigot, it is true He was a timely bigot and 
he had a very salutary influence upon individual and 
national life, both in England and America. But he 
was a bigot all the same. The Puritan did not cotne to 
Massachusetts to establish religious liberty. That was 
the last thing he wanted for any but himself, and his 
demands were moderate in his own direction He came to 
establish a theocratic State, and for a considerable 
time he accomplished what he undertook. Citizenship 
was limited to church membership. In discipline he 
was unreasonably severe. He taxed his ingenuity, and 
it was great, to make Hell dreadful and scare people 
into Heaven. He was not uneducated, but he was 
highly superstitious. He saw omens for good or evil 
in the most ordinary occurrenc^^s. Capital offences 
were numerous in his State and he would punish when 
he was so disposed, law or no law. His will was law. 
He knew no such thing as toleration. All who were 
not Puritans were of Satan, and he would have none of 
them. He was not over-charged with pity. His fear 
of witchcraft, comets, and the visitation of a material 
devil was consuming His theology was logical and 
severe, and for it he crucified the flesh. His manners 
were strained and his life steady and exact, his spirit 
unyielding, his worship altogether sincere and entirely 
uninterrupted, and, withal, his doings made for char- 
acter, for intellectual activity and for progress. 

The Pilgrim was a Puritan, but he had taken a post 
graduate degree. He was in advance of Puritan 



20 

thought. He was a Puritan in character, but he was a 
Puritan subdued. He had been chastened by his sor- 
rows. He had lived for twelve years in a land where 
there was intellectual freedom and complete religious 
toleration The laws which he made in his new State 
were more liberal than in any other State upon the 
earth. He made but eight capital crimes. There were 
more than two hundred in England at the beginning of 
this century. He executed his laws fearlessly and with 
certainty. When it was necessary to show the savages 
his strength and teach them a lesson his retribution 
was appalling. In personal morality he was no less 
exacting than his neighbor forty miles away. He wel- 
comed all sects if they would earn their own living and 
conform to his civil law, and he not only welcomed 
them but he gave them a part with him in making and 
administering the law they were expected to obey. 
Standish, the strong right arm of his little State, was 
not of his Church, and there is some reason to think he 
was a child of the old Mother Church of Rome. The 
Pilgrim hung no witches and was remarkably free 
from superstition, for his day and age. He had made 
much progress in courtesy and in generosity. Father 
Druillette, a French Jesuit, in his journal refers to his 
pleasant entertainment by Bradford, when he visited 
Plymouth,^ nd speaks of his thoughtfulness in providing 
a fish dinner because it was Friday. The ears of the 
Baptist were safe at Plymouth. Roger Williams says: 
"That great and pious soul, Mr. Winslow, melted and 
kindly visited me and put a purse of gold into the 
hands of my wife for our support." The Puritan was 
not given to liberality and toleration, but the Pilgrim 
was, and to a degree in advance of his time 

The conditions at the Bay did not permit the building 
of an independent nation. The traditions and thought, 
the alliances and sympathies, the interests of the officials 
and the preaching of the clergy were all against it. 
This was emphatically true after the Puritan party 
got the upper hand in English politics. But the wind 
never ceased to blow the other way at Plymouth. The 



21 

Pilgrim had no relations to divert his thought from an 
ultimate nationality of his own, and upon the lines 
which he had been following: since the old days when 
he was cheated and robbed and imprisoned and scat- 
tered abroad, by English power, even in his attempts to 
gain refuge across the North Sea. 

The Puritan theocracy served its time and its pur- 
pose in the plan of the Almighty and then broke doA^n, 
and we are glad of it. American air would not sustain 
it. The trend of life in the New World was against it. 
When, seventy years after the landing, the two colonies 
became one they moved forward on lines projected at 
Plymouth, and steadily and surely towards indepen- 
dence and nationality. Time and exigencies made 
Separatists of the American Puritans. They all moved 
together toward a great climax, that climax an English 
nation substantially upon the plan started in the cabin 
of the "Mayflower"' and established upon the rock at 
Plymouth. 

There was never any alliance of State and Church in 
tlie Old Colony. The civil and military organizations 
were always separate there. All who led well-ordered 
lives were welcomed and the suffrage was univer.^al. 
Piety was common and the reign of the law was su- 
preme. They had been the first to combine sovereignty 
and liberty in one plan. This was the plan upon which 
a new nation would grow. It was incompatible with 
the religious and political conditions which prevailed 
over the sea, and it was out of joint with the plan of 
government in the Mother-land. Separation was log- 
ical and inevitable. Brewster and Bradford and Win- 
slow and Standish were the men whose spirits inspired 
Otis and Franklin and the Adamses and Henry and 
Washington and Jefferson and Hamilton and John 
Marshall and all the other patriots of the Revolution 
and fathers of the Constitution. The famous declara- 
tion by w^hich the American people became a nation, 
assumed sovereignty and attained independence, was 
the logical and imperative sequence of Separatism 



germinated at old Scrooby, nourished in the Nether- 
lands and matured at Plymouth. 

We should never cease to congratulate ourselves and 
thank God that we live in a great and happy day. For 
lis, at lea.st, the old conditions, the old troubles, and the 
old questions have passed away. We speak of them 
now only to illumine the present. The divine rights of 
kings have given place to the divine rights of the peo- 
ple. We make and administer our own laws and we 
all stand equal before the law. Church and State are 
completely dissociated. Thought and speech are un- 
hampered. Worship, in whatever form, in the great 
Cathedral or by the Salvation Army on the 
cold pavement of a great city, is not only 
unquestioned but always respected. The old Roman 
Church and the younger Protestant Church, Reform- 
ists, Conformists, Non-Conformists, Puritans and Sep- 
aratists, Presbyterians and Quakers, the disciples of 
Luther and of Wesley, of Ignatius Loyola and of Henry 
of Navarre, Jews and Gentiles, follow their own religious 
ideas while they gather in peace under one great flag. 
Better than that, they find plenty of room and they stim- 
ulate each other to better thinking and to good works. 
They rejoice in each other's progress and they grow in 
fraternal regard. And so the common intelligence ad- 
vances and the spirit of the Living God marches on to 
the redemption of mankind. 

And what scene so typical of all this as this mixed 
company, discussing and approving these things, on a 
Sunday afternoon, under the roof of an American State 
University? 

No matter from whence we come, we are all glad that 
we live in this day and in this fair land. Human 
events have been divinely directed. As we witness the 
heroism and feel the pathos of the past, we place a 
higher value upon the heritage which the fathers 
handed down to us. As we value our inheritance 
surely we will not forget the men and women gone 
before. We will see that manhood is above nationality^ 
that the touch of nature which makes all the world 

LofC. 



kin is above dogma, and tliat oneness with tlie (xod of 
the Universe is above the artificial works of men. We 
will recall contributions to our American institutions 
and our national life by men and women representing 
many nations, speaking many languages and devoted 
to many creeds. We will revere them all. Surely we 
will not forget the Dutch. We will respect and honor 
English Puritanism and, perhaps above all the rest, 
we will lavish our gratitude upon those past-masters 
of English Puritanism, the sturdy yet gentle men and 
women, who were Pilgrims in the "Mayflower"' and 
our National Forefathers at Plvmouth 



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f(OV 30 1900 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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